- Founded
- 2010
- Min deposit
- None
- Headquarters
- Australia
- Max leverage
- 1:500
- Regulation & licensing10.0
- Regulatory & legal record9.2
- Published trading cost7.1
- Payments & withdrawals7.0
- ASIC
- FCA
- BaFin
- CySEC
- DFSA
- SCB-BS
Is it just you?
The live count for Pepperstone is not loaded on this copy of the page yet. You can still report a problem — it is recorded straight away and shows up here shortly.
On the record against Pepperstone
1- Supreme Court of New South WalesUnder appeal1 September 2025
The owners of Pepperstone were ordered to pay A$96.9m plus interest to the private equity firm that sold them the business.
An ownership dispute rather than a client one: Justice Rees found a drafting error in the 2018 share sale agreement had been exploited. An appeal was lodged in December 2025. No client money is involved and no regulator has acted.
FX News Group — reported, not the source document · Australia · Decided, and being challenged.
None of this moves the score on this page. The weights are published on the methodology page and they read licences, costs, payments, platforms and disclosures — there is no component for what an authority has done, and adding a penalty nobody could see would be worse than the gap. It is written here instead, above everything good about this broker, which is where we think it belongs.
Pepperstone in short
The useful comparison is with Exness. Both lead with an FCA licence; both have a British company filing accounts anyone can read. Pepperstone’s says its business is onboarding retail clients and that it held £26.2m of client money at 30 June 2025. Exness’s says B2B, and $2.5m. Same regulator, same kind of licence, and the filings tell you which one is actually doing the thing it advertises.
What is good
- 4 tier-1 licences that actually take retail clients — ASIC, FCA, BaFin, CySEC
- A statutory compensation scheme in at least one jurisdiction — FSCS up to £85,000
- Cheaper all-in than 6 of the other 9 brokers here — 0.85 pips a round turn
- A swap-free account is available
- No minimum deposit
- Three or more platforms, not just the house one — MT4, MT5, CTRADER, PROPRIETARY
- Prices as an ECN rather than against you on a dealing desk
- Copy trading is built in rather than bolted on by a third party
- Publishes which company serves which country, so the map above can be checked
What it costs you
- Outside the countries the licensed entities name you sign with Pepperstone Markets Limited in The Bahamas — no compensation scheme
Both lists are generated from the record on this page and from how it compares with the other nine brokers here. Nothing on either side was written to be flattering, and a correction to the data rewrites them the same day.
Score breakdown
Method- Regulation & licensing27%10.0
ASIC · FCA · BaFin · CySEC · DFSA · SCB-BS
- Regulatory & legal record10%9.2
Supreme Court of New South Wales (2025, under appeal)
- Published trading cost18%7.1
0.85 pips all-in on EUR/USD
- Payments & withdrawals18%7.0
3 methods · stated ~24h
- Platforms & execution13%9.9
6 platforms · ECN
- Verified reviews9%—
Fewer than 5 verified reviews — excluded
- Corporate transparency5%7.5
3 of 4 disclosures published
1 component had no data and was excluded — the remaining weights were renormalised rather than scoring it zero.
Which entity will you be under?
- Pepperstone Group Limited
No investor compensation scheme
Australian Securities & Investments Commission · licence 414530
Takes: Australia, New Zealand
- Pepperstone Limited
FSCS up to £85,000
Financial Conduct Authority · licence 684312
Takes: United Kingdom
- Pepperstone GmbH
EdW up to €20,000
Federal Financial Supervisory Authority · licence 151148
Takes: Germany
- Pepperstone EU Limited
ICF up to €20,000
Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission · licence 388/20
Takes: Cyprus, France, Italy, Spain and 1 more
- Pepperstone Financial Services (DIFC) Ltd
No investor compensation scheme
Dubai Financial Services Authority · licence F004356
Takes: United Arab Emirates
- Pepperstone Markets LimitedMOST READERS
No investor compensation scheme
Securities Commission of The Bahamas · licence SIA-F217
Takes: Everyone not covered above
Where you live decides the entity, and the entity decides the protection. What changes between them.
Licences
6 on record- AASIC 414530authorised
Not read yet — the next register run will check it.
- AFCA 684312authorised
No automated check: API requires a registered key; the public search page renders client-side. Check it yourself at the FCA register.
- ABaFin 151148authorised
No automated check: we have no reader for this register yet. Check it yourself at the BaFin register.
- ACySEC 388/20authorised
Not read yet — the next register run will check it.
- BDFSA F004356authorised
No automated check: we have no reader for this register yet. Check it yourself at the DFSA register.
- BSCB-BS SIA-F217authorised
No automated check: we have no reader for this register yet. Check it yourself at the SCB-BS register.
Every number here is on a register you can search yourself, for free — here is where each register is.
Costs and terms
- EUR/USD spread
- 0.1 pips
- Commission
- $7 per lot round turn
- All-in cost
- 0.85 pips
- Swap-free available
- Yes
- Stated withdrawal time
- 24 hrs
- Funding methods
- bank, card, ewallet
- Platforms
- MT4, MT5, CTRADER, PROPRIETARY, WEB, MOBILE
- Execution
- ECN
All-in cost is the spread plus the commission converted to pips, so two accounts charging in different ways can be put in one column — the arithmetic, in money.
What we checked on Pepperstone
16 Sept 2026The useful comparison is with Exness. Both lead with an FCA licence; both have a British company filing accounts anyone can read. Pepperstone’s says its business is onboarding retail clients and that it held £26.2m of client money at 30 June 2025. Exness’s says B2B, and $2.5m. Same regulator, same kind of licence, and the filings tell you which one is actually doing the thing it advertises.
The British company does what it says it does
Pepperstone Limited files full accounts at Companies House every year, and the 2025 set opens by stating what the company is for: "to onboard retail and professional clients for the purpose of providing a platform for these clients to buy and sell leveraged Contract for Difference and spread-betting products" 1. Retail is the first word. It has been profitable every year since it started operating in 2017.
The numbers are ordinary in the good sense. Revenue from commissions, swaps and spreads of £15.04m in the year to 30 June 2025, up from £13.02m. Profit before tax of £24.07m against £13.27m. Client cash held in segregated accounts of £26.17m, close to flat on the £26.97m a year earlier 1. A dividend of £8.5m was declared and paid.
One structural detail is worth pulling out, because it is the kind of thing no review site mentions and it changes what the FCA licence means. The accounts say plainly: "The Company’s licence does not allow it to take on any market risk and therefore all market risk is borne by the Company’s affiliate company Pepperstone Group Limited" 1. The British firm faces the client and holds the money; the Australian firm carries the position. That is a normal matched-principal arrangement, and it means the counterparty to your trade is in Melbourne even when your client agreement is in London.
The entity we had wrong, and what it was costing readers
Until this research, this site listed Pepperstone EU Limited — the CySEC firm — as the catch-all. That told every reader outside Australia, Britain and Dubai that they would be a client of a European investment firm with the Investor Compensation Fund behind it. They would not be.
Pepperstone’s own regulation page names one company as the operator of the global site: Pepperstone Markets Limited, company number 177174 B, licensed by the Securities Commission of The Bahamas as SIA-F217, registered at Old Fort Bay in Nassau 7. That is the entity most readers here get, and the map says so now. Two more that we had simply left out are on it too: Pepperstone GmbH, a BaFin-supervised securities institution in Düsseldorf 3, and the Cyprus firm, now against the countries it actually covers.
The Bahamas is not Seychelles. The Securities Commission licenses under a securities act, inspects and enforces, and publishes a register — which is why it sits at tier B here rather than with the pure registration regimes. What it does not run is a compensation scheme, and what it does not impose is a leverage cap. That is the trade, and it is the same trade every broker in this directory offers to the part of the world its tier-A licences do not reach.
Who owns it, and the fight about that
Pepperstone was founded in Melbourne in 2010 by Owen Kerr and Joe Davenport. Champ Private Equity, now CPE Capital, bought 60% in 2016; in 2018 that stake went to FX Group Holdings, a vehicle of Fiona Lock with the chief executive and a former director alongside her, funded by a A$150m loan from CPE repayable at A$211.6m 6.
That deal ended up in the Supreme Court of New South Wales. In September 2025 Justice Kelly Rees ordered FX Group Holdings to pay CPE A$96.9m plus interest, finding that a drafting error in the share sale agreement had been exploited and that the reading advanced against CPE was "absurd". An appeal was lodged in December and is pending 6.
None of this is about client money or conduct, and it is not a reason to avoid the broker. It is here because a private company’s ownership is normally invisible, and for once there is a judgment saying who owns what and what they owe. The British subsidiary names its immediate parent as FX MidCo Pty Ltd and points to group accounts at FX HoldCo Pty Ltd in Melbourne 1 — more of a paper trail than most brokers here leave.
What checked out, and the one thing to actually watch
Every licence on this page was read rather than taken on trust. ASIC’s register returns Pepperstone Group Limited under AFS licence 414530, active; CySEC’s returns Pepperstone EU Limited under 388/20 2. The FCA firm reference, 684312, has been authorised since 5 August 2015, and the UK accounts corroborate it from the other direction 1.
The thing worth watching has nothing to do with Pepperstone’s conduct. BaFin has published consumer warnings about websites impersonating the brand — pepperstone.vip in May 2024 and pepperstone.life in November 2024 — and the FCA has warned about a Pepperstone clone of its own 5. Clone firms target the brokers people trust, so a warning list entry like this is closer to a compliment than an accusation. It is still money someone lost. Check the domain against the licence before you deposit, and the guide on this site on reading a register will tell you how.
As with every broker here, Pepperstone’s own pricing and payment figures on this page are the ones it publishes, read by a person, with the date beside them. Its spreads are quoted to two decimal places by a dozen review sites and not one of them says how it measured. We do not carry those numbers.
The figures, and where each one came from
- UK entity, client money at 30 June 20251
- £26,172,993
- UK entity, the year before1
- £26,971,370
- UK entity, trading revenue 20251
- £15,040,968
- UK entity, profit before tax 20251
- £24,070,877
- UK entity, principal activity1
- Onboarding retail and professional clients
- Who carries the market risk1
- Pepperstone Group Limited, Australia
- Immediate parent1
- FX MidCo Pty Ltd; group accounts at FX HoldCo Pty Ltd
- Global site operator7
- Pepperstone Markets Limited, Bahamas, SIA-F217
- FCA authorisation, effective4
- 5 August 2015, firm reference 684312
- NSW Supreme Court order, September 20256
- A$96.9m plus interest, under appeal
Still open
- Which EU country goes to which entity is our reading, not a disclosure. Germany is assigned to Pepperstone GmbH because that is what a BaFin-licensed German firm is for, and the rest of the EU to the Cyprus firm. The broker does not publish the split country by country.
- A Kenyan entity licensed by the CMA appears in Pepperstone’s own footers and is not on this map yet, because nobody here has read the Kenyan register.
- The A$96.9m appeal has been pending since December 2025. It is an ownership dispute rather than a client one, and it is still the largest open financial question about the group.
Sources
7- 1Pepperstone Limited — full accounts for the year ended 30 June 2025, company 08965105
Companies HouseStatutory filingpublished 10 Apr 2026read 16 Sept 2026
- 2AFS licensee register (414530) and the register of Cyprus Investment Firms (388/20)
ASIC and CySECRegulator’s registerread 16 Sept 2026
- 3Company database — Pepperstone GmbH, Düsseldorf, licence 151148
Bundesanstalt für FinanzdienstleistungsaufsichtRegulator’s registerread 16 Sept 2026
- 4Financial Services Register — Pepperstone Limited, firm reference 684312
Financial Conduct AuthorityRegulator’s registerread 16 Sept 2026
- 5Identitätsdiebstahl: BaFin warns about the website pepperstone.life
Bundesanstalt für FinanzdienstleistungsaufsichtRegulator noticepublished 25 Nov 2024read 16 Sept 2026
- 6Pepperstone owners ordered to pay A$96m to CPE Capital
FX News GroupTrade presspublished 3 Mar 2026read 16 Sept 2026
- 7Is Pepperstone licensed and regulated
PepperstoneThe broker’s own pageread 16 Sept 2026
Every link goes to the document, not to a summary of it, and where it does not we say so on the entry. They carry nofollow like every other outbound link here, and none of them is an affiliate link — a source you are paid to cite is not a source. Where we have any connection to a publisher, it is printed above rather than left for you to find out.
Pepperstone reviewed
How we scoreWhat Pepperstone is
Pepperstone has been trading since 2010, which is 16 years, and runs from Australia. It holds 6 licensed entities across ASIC, FCA, BaFin, CySEC, DFSA and SCB-BS — which is not the same thing as being one company.
On this site it ranks 1st of 10 brokers. That puts it in the upper third of what we cover, on published weights rather than on an opinion. The weights are on the methodology page and nothing paid for the position.
Who regulates Pepperstone
Pepperstone Group Limited, incorporated in Australia, holds ASIC licence 414530 (authorised) and onboards clients in Australia and New Zealand. Pepperstone Limited, incorporated in United Kingdom, holds FCA licence 684312 (authorised) and onboards clients in United Kingdom. Pepperstone GmbH, incorporated in Germany, holds BaFin licence 151148 (authorised) and onboards clients in Germany. Pepperstone EU Limited, incorporated in Cyprus, holds CySEC licence 388/20 (authorised) and onboards clients in Cyprus, France, Italy, Spain and Netherlands. Pepperstone Financial Services (DIFC) Ltd, incorporated in United Arab Emirates, holds DFSA licence F004356 (authorised) and onboards clients in United Arab Emirates. Pepperstone Markets Limited, incorporated in The Bahamas, holds SCB-BS licence SIA-F217 (authorised) and takes everyone else.
4 of those are tier-A regulators — a public register you can search and a statutory compensation scheme behind each: FCA’s FSCS up to £85,000, BaFin’s EdW up to €20,000 and CySEC’s ICF up to €20,000.
The entity that matters most to a reader outside Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and Germany is Pepperstone Markets Limited: it is the fallback, regulated by SCB-BS, which is not a tier-A regulator. Where you live decides which company you sign with, and that decides what protection you have — the entity map on this page says which is which.
What trading Pepperstone costs
Pepperstone publishes a typical EUR/USD spread of 0.1 pips and charges $7 per standard lot round turn, which is about 0.70 pips on a standard lot. All in, a round turn costs about 0.85 pips.
The median across the 10 brokers ranked here is 0.90 pips, so this is the 4th-cheapest of them and below the median. A published spread is a typical spread: it widens on news and around the session close, and no broker publishes that number.
A swap-free account is available, which matters if overnight interest is not something you can take.
Deposits and withdrawals
You can fund an account by bank transfer, debit and credit card and e-wallets. There is no stated minimum deposit.
Pepperstone states that withdrawals are processed in about 24 hours. That is the broker's own figure and this site has not measured it. Processing time is also not arrival time: the payment rail adds its own, and a card refund is slower than the broker's end of it.
Platforms and execution
Pepperstone offers MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, cTrader, its own platform, a web terminal and a mobile app, and has copy trading built in.
Orders are filled on ECN execution, which routes orders to a pool of liquidity providers rather than filling them in-house. Leverage goes to 1:500, which is inside what a tier-A regulator permits a retail client.
What Pepperstone says about itself
Pepperstone publishes which entity serves which country, audited accounts and that client money is held separately from its own.
It does not publish who owns it. That is not evidence of anything on its own — plenty of sound companies are private — and it is the difference between a claim you can check and one you have to take on trust.
Where Pepperstone is strong, and where it is not
Its best component is regulation & licensing, at 10.0 out of 10. Its weakest is payments & withdrawals, at 7.0. Those two are what the score is mostly made of, and a reader for whom payments & withdrawals is the deciding factor should read that row of the breakdown rather than the total.
The short version: a tier-A licence and a below-median cost, which is the combination most readers are looking for.
What this review has not checked
No editor has verified the costs and the funding terms on this record against Pepperstone's own pages. Everything above is read from what the company publishes, and this site says so rather than implying otherwise.
This page is generated from the record above it, so it cannot drift from it: correct a field and the paragraph changes with it. What it will never contain is an opinion about a support team, a platform's feel, or how a withdrawal went — those need people, and when this site has enough verified reviews to say something about them it will say it in the reviews section, with the count attached.
Written from the record on this page, not about it. Every sentence above is a reading of a field you can see here, so a correction to the data corrects the text the same day.
What customers say
0 publishedNobody has written about this one yet. The reviews component of the score is excluded until 5 reviews have been checked by an editor — excluded, not scored zero, because no reviews is not the same as bad reviews.
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Pepperstone — common questions
Is Pepperstone regulated?
Pepperstone operates 6 legal entities. The ones that take retail clients are Pepperstone Group Limited (Australian Securities & Investments Commission, licence 414530); Pepperstone Limited (Financial Conduct Authority, licence 684312); Pepperstone GmbH (Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, licence 151148); Pepperstone EU Limited (Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission, licence 388/20); Pepperstone Financial Services (DIFC) Ltd (Dubai Financial Services Authority, licence F004356); Pepperstone Markets Limited (Securities Commission of The Bahamas, licence SIA-F217). Which of the rest applies to you depends on your country of residence.
What is the minimum deposit at Pepperstone?
Pepperstone states no minimum deposit.
How long do Pepperstone withdrawals take?
Pepperstone states a processing time of 24 hrs. That is the broker's own claim; we publish measured times once enough verified user reports exist.